Let’s face it. Photographers love their Flash sites. Bludomain, Photoidentities, Photobiz, Bigfolio, etc., etc. Even the DWF homepage as shown above uses flash!
But these days, mobile devices are becoming more and more prevalent. While the majority of visitors to photographers websites are still from laptops and desktops, a small, but growing number of visitors are coming from mobile devices.
One of the most common of these devices is the iPhone. And with the iPad due to come out in the next 60 days, photographers need to look long and hard at their Flash-based website.
Because the iPhone doesn’t do Flash. And the iPad? Well, nobody is quite sure, but there is evidence pointing to the fact that it won’t run flash, either. (It should be noted, though, that Safari has a new web content plug-in mechanism for Safari, starting in Snow Leopard, that allows plug ins to run as their own process, meaning that if they crash, they don’t crash Safari, but display that broken rectangle pictured above. So all this hand wringing could be over a crashed plug-in. Or not. But let’s return to the hand wringing.)
Adrian Ludwig, over at the Adobe Flash Blog, says that without Flash, iPad users “will not be able to access the full range of web content, including over 70% of games and 75% of video on the web.”
As a user, you can chose to take sides. You can side with the folks who say that Flash needs to die, or you can join in with the people who are suing Apple because it looked like Flash would work on the iPad, but it doesn’t appear to. Love it, hate it, take it or leave it, you as a user can form your own opinion.
But as a business owner, you need to think carefully about every barrier to entry you place before people. Sure, right now less than 3% of the visitors to photographer websites are browsing from an iPhone (according to a very informal straw poll), but can you really afford to deny anyone access to what—if you are like most photographers—is your primary marketting tool?
If so, at what point does that number become statistically significant? 5%? 10%? At what point in time do you say “I can’t afford to block these people anymore?”
Alex Lindsay, head honcho at the Pixel Corps, relates the story of the CEO who, upon getting the first iPhone, browsed to his company’s website, only to find a broken link.
He took the iPhone to the IT department, and told them to fix the website so it worked. The fix was to remove Flash.
Note that this isn’t an all-or-nothing choice. There are options. Many sites have an html version, or smart switching to detect which browser a visitor is using. And Flash, despite it’s problems, still does things that can’t be done otherwise (at least until HTML 5….). But you need to look at how people are trying to find you, and then be there waiting for them.
Because if you aren’t, someone else will be.
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9 Comments at "The Future of Flash and Photography! Not That Flash, the Other Flash"
It will be interesting to see how this shakes out. Google is shelving further development of “Gears” as it’s thinking forward to push of HTML5 & YouTube is already preparing itself. I think Apple is banking on the same thing. But with how slow adoption can be with some advances, who knows how long it will take!
There are a lot of reasons not to use flash. Highest among them would be for SEO reasons. The iPhone and iPad are strengthening the growing (or maybe following) anti flash movement.
Don’t forget that you can write a script that will send certain browser’s to a HTML site, so iPhone and windows mobile can be redirected to a low bandwidth site.
I also think flash is overused especially on photo sites.
I use Photobiz and they offer an add on that redirects anyone using an iPhone to a special mirror site specifically for it. No extra coding required, all done automatically based on your main site.
Also, there is an HTML version that users can choose over the flash one.
99% of photography sites using flash are using it to do nothing that can’t be done with the HTML and javascript that has been around for the last 5 years. Transitions, slideshows, sliding thumbnails…. its all right there without Flash.
Photogs go with Flash because that’s what they’ve been told and sold, not because it the best option. It is in fact probably the worst option if you’re not a ‘big name’ who doesn’t need to ever show up when a potential client searches for you.
Sounds like a step backwards to me!!
HTML and FLASH are just coding tools that designers and coders like myself use to accomplish a set of specifications. When I am given an assignment I pick the right tool for the job. The next version of HTML (html5) holds a lot of promise, but so does the next version of Flash. In terms of search engine optimization (SEO) there are services like LiveBoks and foliolink that create full solutions that do not merely address the presentation side of a website. Both have shadow HTML websites for search engine visibility and foliolink also offers device specific sites for the iphone, etc. In fact, it is easy to argue that the best photography website is the one that gives your visitors the best experience across all platforms (Flash or HTML, pc, mac, iphone, ipad…) and gives search engines the most content (Flash+HTML shadow or HTML only. In the end whether or not a photographer picks a Flash site with an HTML shadow site targeted to search engine visibility or an HTML only site is purely personal, but Flash done well plays a very compelling card when it comes to enhancing a site visitor’s experience of visual content.
Anything that helps lead to the downfall of Flash (as a way to do an entire site) is fine by me.
@Ivan – I agree about the compelling nature of a well-done flash site but those are few and far between. If the aesthetic value of well-done Flash is really needed, they should be used as parts of a page, not the whole thing. An animated logo or header for example. A Flash based image gallery can be impressive but images have a lot of SEO value when done properly in HTML as well.
BTW – A Flash site that uses mirrored HTML content is NOT a good SEO tactic. In fact it is a terrible one. Just look at Google’s Webmaster Guidelines where it says specifically that this is a bad idea that can even result in removal from Google’s index: http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=66355
Like Ben Jamieson mentioned above, most Flash sites do not do anything that a little javascript can’t do. And if the only SEO solution is to offer a mirror site in HTML (as anyone selling a Flash product will tell you, even though this is wrong), then why not just stick with the HTML in the first place? It can look just as good for the most part and is the only option for good SEO.
For anyone worried about those Flash elements showing up on an iPhone or iPad, they can easily be swapped out for an image or alternate content for those visitors, while maintaining the rest of the page and not trying to trick search engines. Serving an entirely different page or site is not a good idea.
You don’t have to take my word for it, read the link I included above and the rest of the Google Webmaster Guidelines.
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